A Corvette Sting Ray Four-Seater?

​Corvette prototypes have taken countless forms over the years. Here’s a furtive attempt at a 1963 Sting Ray four-seater from GM Styling.

The Chevrolet Corvette story, which now spans eight decades, features a number of fascinating twists and turns along the way. Here’s one that, fortunately for the Corvette legacy—in our opinion, anyway—never got the green light for production: a four-seat version of the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray.

​In Corvette lore, the executive responsible for the 2+2 Sting Ray (internal code name XP-796) was GM’s powerful car and truck boss, Ed Cole, who looked on in envy as the four-place Ford Thunderbird continued to rack up impressive sales figures year after year. Of course, the notion of a Corvette with a rear seat was not entirely original (read our feature on the 1956 Corvette Impala here) and in the Motor City, the traditional rule of thumb is that a two-seater is a niche product by definition, while a four-seat package has real volume potential. The ’63 Sting Ray redesign was an expensive and ambitious undertaking for Chevrolet, so we can understand Cole’s instinct for covering his bets.

​While the GM styling crew led by Bill Mitchell reportedly hated the four-seat Sting Ray variant, they did an admirable job trying to make the proportions work out. In the photo at the top of this page, a careful camera angle nearly conceals the awkward stretch job, but a normal side view gives away the game: The chassis and the graceful Sting Ray profile have been stretched a good six inches to create a rear passenger area. And even so, the folding 2+2 seating (above) is probably even less comfortable than it looks.
The one-off prototype was shown to the company brass in around January of 1962 in the GM styling studios, parked next to a new Thunderbird to provide the obvious competitive benchmark. It was there, as the story goes, that GM president John F. Gordon was trying out the rear seat when a front seat latch jammed, trapping him inside. And although he was quickly rescued, that, they say, was pretty much the end of the four-seat Sting Ray project.

Article courtesy of Mac's Motor City Garage.